WASHINGTON – Need a job? Have a background in security, health and medicine, or the sciences? If the answer is yes, the federal government wants you. Desperately.

Uncle Sam will need to fill more than 37,500 security and law enforcement related jobs in the next two years, according to a first-of-its-kind survey on the employment needs of the 15 largest departments and nine independent agencies that represent 95% of the federal work force.

Those jobs range from criminal investigators and police officers to security, prison guards, and airport screeners, according to the study released last week by the Partnership for Public Service and the National Academy of Public Administration.

The report says the government is facing an employment shortfall because of scores of anticipated retirements among the baby boomers in its ranks and the reluctance among recent college graduates and other job seekers to pursue careers in the much-maligned federal bureaucracy.

“The federal government today is under crisis,” Max Stier, president and chief executive officer of the Partnership for Public Service, said in an interview. “You’re seeing broad hiring needs across many agencies that will be necessary for the federal government to get the job done.”

The government expects to hire more than 25,700 doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and medical technicians over the two-year period, along with more than 23,800 workers with expertise in engineering and the sciences – physicists, chemists, biologists, botanists, and veterinarians, the study says.

In addition to the health and medical fields, the report also said the government will be hiring a large number of people for management and administrative positions, including public affairs and human resource specialists and congressional affairs officers. More than 17,000 new hires are expected in this area.